A joint crowdsourcing Twitter campaign by #OlaOutStation and Wandertrails

Ola Cabs and Wandertrails jointly conducted a crowdsourcing Twitter campaign to build a list of little-known destinations in India. Joint Twitter campaigns by two brands are rare to see. More often there is an argument about benefit that each brand might reap from such joint campaigns. But, here’s an example of a joint crowdsourcing Twitter campaign that seems to have helped both Ola Cabs and Wandertrials.

What is Wandertrails?

Personally, I had heard this brand name for the first time. I reached their website through the website mentioned in their Twitter bio. So, Wandertrails offers ‘Experiences’ and ‘Experiential Stays’ at some of the most destinations like Wayanad, Coorg, Pondicherry, Goa, Munnar, Bengaluru etc.

Wandertrails Website

Synergy between Ola OutStation and Wandertrails

Ola Cabs recently launched the OutStation service. And, as I understood Wandertrails was looking for some good visibility. Hence, there was a synergy for sure from marketing objective perspective. However, whether going by the traditional debate of having a brand of equal stature for joint campaigns, I can’t comment what made Ola go for this proposition.

What was in it for the audience?

A vague bait of ‘sponsored trip by Ola OutStation and Wandertrails’! Generally, such campaign do require a detailed T&C for audience to refer and understand the outcomes of the campaign. However, I couldn’t find any such explicit mention on the timeline or the contest tweet.

What were the little-known destinations?

Quite a few people responded to this contest tweet made by Ola Cabs. Some of the names that sounded new to me were – Cancer Hills (Gwalior, MP), Barog (Solan, HP), Mokokchung (Nagaland), Nubra Valley (J&K), Kunti Betta (Karnataka), Sonapani (UK), Nohkalikai Falls (Meghalaya), Mandarmoni (WB), Munsiyari (UK), Zuluk (Sikkim) and many more.

What was the outcome of campaign?

Lot of questions bothered my mind:

Who gained more from this campaign? – Ola Cabs or Wandertrails

How will Ola Cas and/or Wandertrails plan to use this crowdsourced information?

What benefit do respondents get by participating in this campaign, apart from being promised a vague offer of sponsored trip?